Nokia workers to meet labour commissioner tomorrow

Workers at Nokia’s factory at Sriperumbudur, about 40 km from here, will meet the labour commissioner on Monday. The decision followed a meeting of the workers to discuss a recent Supreme Court order that said Nokia had to provide a Rs 3,500-crore guarantee before transferring the factory to Microsoft.

The meeting also discussed Nokia’s plan to cut the number of workers at the factory. The factory has 8,000 permanent workers and employs another 25,000 indirectly.

After the court order, Nokia India Thozhilalar Sangham, which represents most of the workers at the factory, met the management. The Nokia management had indicated it might reduce the staff strength at the factory.

To discuss a course of action, Nokia India Thozhilalar Sangham representatives met A Soundararajan of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions. “As a first step, we are meeting the labour commissioner to discuss the issue. Based on the outcome, we will decide the next course of action,” said Soundararajan, also a member of the Tamil Nadu Assembly.

Earlier, the workers union had said it was planning to approach the state government and urge it to interfere in the matter, as labour was a state subject.

Sources in the company said the number of shifts had been reduced to two. They, however, added this was to balance operations between the plants across the world. As the company has stated production at its Vietnam plant, balancing production was vital, they said.

Since its inception, the Sriperumbudur facility has produced 800 million handsets.